They broke camp ten minutes later and rode hard, rode south, each cursing the darkness and the cold and the wind that stung faces, stung lips, and tore tears from their eyes as they pelted down the frozen roadway toward the friend that had decided all on his own that leaving them meant that they’d be safe.
• • •
“Where is he?”
He hated how his voice shook as he asked her the question. He hated that he still thought that she must be lying, if she’d been hunting for his cousin for as long as she said she had been—she must have some idea where Seamus was.
What he hated more was the pained look on her face.
“I don’t know, Wanderer,” Leinth said. “I wish I did. He would be safe if I knew where he was because he would be protected. I would find a way to ensure that he was protected—better than you and yours could ever hope to defend him from what hunts him.”
“And everything hunts him,” Phelan said dryly, eyes narrowing slightly. “Because nothing’s more tempting than the former Taliesin.”
“That is what I said.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re perhaps the most trying man I have ever met in my life, Wanderer, and that says a great deal because I loved Seamus and knew his brother, too.”
The back of his neck prickled, the hairs on his arms stirring. Phelan went tense for a moment, looking around slowly, taking a deep breath and drawing a tendril of power from the ground beneath his feet up and into his staff.
“My mother used to tell him the same thing,” Ériu’s voice said dryly. He caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye and relaxed a fraction, frowning.
“What are you doing here?”
“The Spiritweaver asked a favor,” she said, as if that explained everything. “So here I am, about to tell you again that you’re a bloody idiot and they’re angry at you for running away. Oh, and Scandinavian bitches have sent their skinchangers for you again. Cameron and Thomas and some others rode out after your sorry carcass. It would be polite to be alive when they finally reach you.”
Leinth stared at the shade, her expression caught between annoyance and amusement.
When she started to laugh, Phelan wasn’t sure if he hated her or sympathized.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he sighed. “Just great.”
Now what am I going to do?
